Surprisingly Human
by CrackedShot
Summary: Angela Ziegler is called back, and learns people are more than thier title. Two-shot.


Doctor Angela Ziegler had always been considered a woman of action, and she had always made a point to live by that title, to never let red tape or indecision stop her from doing the right thing. But when the video showed up on the knews of Talon nearly recovering the Doomfist, she did nothing. It wasn't her fight. When the mass video was released to the public announcing Overwatch's revival, she forced herself to do nothing. There was no way that it could stay afloat, so why go waste time trying to find them? When a personal E-mail addressing her as "Mercy" appeared on her personal computer, she finally realized that she couldn't do nothing anymore.

But waiting turned out a good choice in the end because her stagnation allowed enough time for her to properly set up the hospital as well as several of her humanitarian organizations in such a way that they should be capabe of running smoothly without her for an indefinate amount of time. But she must have been taking her time a bit more than Winston had wanted because a few days later an unmarked, unsinged poastcard smelling of peanut butter had found its way into her apartment.

 _¡Querría que estés aquì!_

The background image was a beautiful image of Madrid with the words printed over it in old-fashioned lettering but Angela was smart enough to know that if they were in Spain then the base had to be Gibraltar.

 _Of course,_ she thought silently to herself and, with a quick phone call to her secretary/assistant/fellow doctor/freind to inform him of his newest promotion to Angela's position, (he made her promise that it wasn't a permenant promotion) along with a pay raise to go with it, and a memo to the board about her future absence, all of which were shy on details, she was on her way to the most self-sustaining watchpoint Overwatch had ever built.

-

The watchpoint was, in a word, depressing. Almost all of the lights were off to conserve power, and if it wasn't for Athena welcoming her back and guiding her through the dark corridors, she would have assumed that the place was abandoned.

But even without Athena's help, Angela would probably have been able to find the commons. Most of the bases were laid out in a similar pattern, but the fact that she could just follow the sound of other people as well as the distinct scent of peanut butter and guerilla didn't hurt either. Eventually she could see a light overhead and, with lightlight, voices.

"...Of course not, I would never insult you, it's simply a scientific fact, the physiological state of any one human-excluding cybernetically or otherwise enhanced-is inferior to that of a fully grown gurrila."

The deep voice she heard came from Winston, said resident gurrila, who was attempting to talk someone down, by the sound of his voice. Angela lazily wondered who it could be before she turned the corner to see two of her dearest friends.

"But I'm not _any_ human, so why won't you test this theory _Herr Winston?"_

Angela couldn't quite contain the giggle that escaped her lips at the sight before her. A sweaty Reinhardt stood leaned over a table one arm bent so the elbow was touching the table while his hand was reaching out tward the gurrila in front of him, in a vain attempt to arm-wrestle the beast.

At the sound of her chortle Reinhardt whipped around to face her, suprised alertness changing to joyful glee on his face. at the sight of her.

"Angela!" they shouted in unison. The two giants sandwiched her in a hug that would have been fatal if they were less careful. It was a strange thought but all that Angela could think of was that they smelled exactly like the used to, of aged leather and german chocolates (Reinhardt) mixed with peanut butter and dandruff-free shampoo (Winston). She wished that she could just sit there and enjoy the moment, but there is only so long before any hug becomes awkward, so a respectable distance was created between the three.

Then came the mandatory catching-up questioning. How has she been? She's a CEO for a disaster relief company? Wow. Did she bring the suit and staff? Good, they're going to need it. And how is Winston? He's been here doing... quite a bit and at the same time nothing. He and Tracer have been working together on a low key half-assed Overwatch for a while, they saved the Doomfist on thier own and brought it here, and no, it wasn't stealing. Tracer was also there for the Mondatta incident and Angela? Talon has Gabe and Amil-no, they have _Widowmaker and Reaper_ working with them. Reinhardt has been crusading, never really stopped. His neice is here too, but she isn't allowed in the feild with them, no matter what she says. Gengi's on his way too, along with his "master" and more importantly, enough money to keep this place running the way that it will need to be if they are actually going to get anything done. The word "yakuza" was intentionally avoided when he said the word "money".

Then came the important bits. Winston was injured acquiring the Doomfist, he would be fine, but he was benched for the time being. Lena's accelerator was doing fine, but if anything were to happen to it, Winston wasn't sure if he had the tools to fix it, so that meant she couldn't be as brave as usual. Everything was on short supply, and the only power was currently coming from a gas generator along with a couple inefficient handmade solar panels. They had some basic recon drones, along with one transport aircraft, with limited weapons or mobility, but fair stealth capabilities. And now that she was there, it was time to go out into the feild for a smash-and-grab on a poorly protected Talon supply depot in the Indian jungle.

-

The moment she stepped onto the ship, she felt herself transition from Doctor Angela Ziegler to Overwatch's Mercy. She was a valkarie, a guardian angel sent to aid her chosen champion. She was a _hero._ When she was Mercy, things had been simple, help the good guys, stop the bad, save lives, and _do not_ get romantic with a certain beautiful Egyptian woman. Or a Japanese cyborg man. Or her Strike Commander.

But then, when she went back to being Doctor Angela Ziegler, things became complicated. When dealing with beurocrats, or balancing a resources between hospitals, then there was no clear right anwser. But now she was Mercy again, and Mercy always knew what to do.

The ship was big enough to hold a fair amount of supplies, but as they flew tward their destination, it was just her and Reinhardt, both in full kit, pretending that they couldn't hear Tracer murder The Beatles from the cockpit with what sounded like a cat being dragged across a cheese grater.

Fortunately, soon and the small warehouse was revealed to them. It looked like an old farmshed, with only a few guards, a dirt road, and two large tanks for holding water and fuel respectively.

But instead of stealthily landing like Mercy expected, Tracerflew directly over the structure and shot at the fuel tank. If the airship hadn't already attracted the attention of everyone in the area, then the explosion certainly did.

" **ATTENTION. YOU ARE SURROUNDED. LAY DOWN YOUR WEAPONS OR WE WILL OPEN** **FIRE,"** Tracer bluffed. She then let out the exhaust loudly reel out from the ship, making it sound as if something inside was revving up. The ship wasn't really combat ready, but the way that the Talon mercs layed down, they didn't seem to know that.

In less than five minutes they had everyone tied to one another in a circle with Tracer standing guard as Mercy and Reinhardt loaded the ship with varoius things from the warehouse. They managed to fit in most of what Winston had told them to find and were just about to contact authorities and blow the warehouse when they heard gunfire outside. Before Mercy could get a word out Reinhardt crashed through the wall and had lifted his energy barrier to protect Tracer. Mercy started sprinting up behind them before remebering her Valkarie suit. _Stupid._ She had to physically restrain herself from facepalming as she glided up to her teammates. She activated her staff, quickly patching up Tracer, before pulling out her own sidearm and attempting to aid in her friends attempt to supress the seven or so armed men that had came out from the woods, each in the always fashionable garb of Talon aromr: jungle variant.

The men took cover quickly behind the armored truck they had arrived in and were steadily chipping away at the barrier. Mercy frantically looked around for a more defendable position but there was simply nothing around. On either side of them was more jungle, behind them was the decidedly not bulletproff warehouse, the group of tied up chumps, and, on the other side of the warehouse, was their ship. "We must flee!" she shouted over the roar of gunfire, even as another large crack dragged its way across Reinhardt's shield. "Stack up behind me!" Reinhardt cried. As soon as the two women were safely directly behind the large man he disengaged his shield and, with a rather loud scream, slammed his ridiculous hammer into the ground. The earth cracked beneath them, causing the men in front of them to all stumble wiledly, two almost filpped in the air, and the trio made a break for it. Reinhardt charged forward, breaking through walls with the two smaller women at his heels. Mercy never looked back, not when Tracer turned around to throw some sort of bomb, not when she felt the heat of the expolsion, not even when she felt what must have been a bullet whiz past her and ruffled her hair. Only once she was safe inside the large hanger and she felt the ship take off did she turn around to watch India shrink behind her.

She then preformed a quick once-over of herself and the mountain of a man beside her to make sure that they were both injury-free. Seeing that the both of them were suprisingly unscathed, beyond a few dents in Reindhart's armor, she finally allowed herself to let out the large breath that was unconciously sitting inside her lungs. Reindhart let out a breathy laugh that gradually grew into an outright booming din.

After allowing herself a short chortle at the wonderful fact that she was alive, Mercy went up to the cockpit to check up on her friend. When she got up there, Tracer's uncharacteristically pale face was locked forward, several beads of sweat slowly rolled down her face, right side of her jumpsuit darkening into crimson. "I'm hit doc," it was barely a whisper and the terrified pilot never looked away from the controls.

Doctor Angela Ziegler quickly assessed the injury. There was a long gash running across her ribcage, a fair bit of blood steadily pooling out, but it wasn't very deep. The problem was that her harness was just above the wound, so there was little space to work.

"Tracer it's just a scratch, but it's bleeding pretty badly. I can bind it here, and stitch it up when we get back, but I need to take your harness off okay?" her Comforting Doctor Angela Ziegler voice sounded strange to her own ears whe it was being said the Human Calvary herself, but panic was the last thing she wanted to give to the person who was flying the ship. Even still, Tracer's pupils grew until Angela could barely see the color in her eyes. "Do you have to?" she breathed. "Can't you just use your staff and make it all better?" she cracked an unconvincing smile making it was hard to tell if she was joking or not.

She sighed, "Tracer, the staff is just a temporary fix, you'll still need medical attention, so please-"

"Well can't we just use the bloody thing 'till we get back!?" It was a quick and sudden outburst. "Please, Mercy, Angela, just... I don't want to take it off. Winston said the accelerator has something like a two meter radius but... please? I don't want to," she started to cry, "I don't want to float away again."

In that moment, Angela saw all of the fear that the young woman held inside of her. She saw the trauma, the pain, the endlessness of it all, and she saw the primal instinct that she had to never have that again. Angela didn't understand everything she had seen, but she had seen everything. "Actually, It doesn't look that serious," she lied, "I can just wrap it up with some gauze and stick around if you want some company, does that sound good?"

Lena exhaled deeply, as if a large weight had been lifted from her before nodding her head in agreement. Angela grabbed the first-aid kit that hung on the wall. She spread some antiseptic over the wound before binding it as firmly as she could. It was slightly difficult to reach around the pilot's back to continue wrapping the gauze properly, but she managed. After all, both Doctor Angela Ziegler and Mercy had preformed much more difficult tasks in much worse situations. As she wrapped the wound, Angela tried to come up with some sort of conversation to fill what was certainly going to be an awkward silence.

"So Winston told me you have a girlfriend," it was a complete shot in the dark, and Angela was really just trying to get the poor girl to say something, a halfhearted denial, or something along those lines. What she was _not_ expecting was for all of the color that had rerurned to her face suddenly rush to the young woman's cheeks.

"How did HE know?" She shouted.

Angela couldn't resist a grin. Strapping herself into the co-pilot's chair so she could sit down -Angela had no idea how to fly this thing- The doctor leaned over eagerly. "Who is she?" followed by "It's not Fareeha right?" followed again by "N-not that I care."

"Fareeha? No her name is Emily," A smile crept up the time-traveler's face as she said her name. "She's great, she's got _really_ red hair, not communist red but more of a rust red if rust was sexy. Oh, and Angela her _legs. Ohmygodherlegs._ That was actually how I met her. We were both at a charity ball for Omnic rights-she's a lawer for that kimd of stuff-and she sees me and she says 'You look like you've got a tower up to your hips' which is like, the worst pick-up line ever and I was about to turn around and tell her that but then I saw her in that teal dress with the sequence and the skin showing and instead she ended up in my apartment and I made a joke about wanting to see her tan line but then she said only if she could see my-"

"-Lena, while I'm happy you have a romantic partner I'd rather not hear about your... exploits."

"Oh," Lena looked genuinely suprisied at the idea of other people not wanting to learn about her sex life. "We've been dating three months now," the goofy smile never left her face. "Maby we won't last but, I have faith."

"You always were an optimist."

"Well yeah but, it's more than just optimism ya' know? I mean, when we first met at that party I got _really_ drunk on fancy champagne and kind of spilled my guts. I told her... everything," Angela had never seen the young woman so open and vunerable before. Actually, now that she thought about it, she had never really seen Lena Oxton before.

"I told her about my accident, about the fighting after the Crisis, about how hard it was being the face of Overwatch, I never told anyone about that part. How every day I had to be all smiles, even if I was hurt, or tired, or if we had just lost a friend and everything was falling into the bloody hell of fear and paranoia and I wasn't sure if we were doing the right thing anymore or if it even mattered at all because as soon as we had done _some_ good there was always another problem on the horizon and how I just wanted to give up sometimes and when I would cry in the barracks and I couldn't tell anyone because of I told someone then it was real and then I really was doubting us and if I was doubting us then there was no one left in the Strike Commander's corner who _wasn't_ doubting us that the people could look to which meant Overwatch really was dead and if it died then we failed and couldnt just let that happen," her words had started to mash together in the end and she had to take a couple deep breaths to calm herself down.

"And then, later, I told her about Doomfist, when he pulled the accelerator off and then," she snapped her fingers for emphasis' "I was gone again, but it was worse than before. Before, It was fleeting glimpses of reality before being pulled back under, only to pop up in another place and another time. Before, when I had the accident, it was like drowning in a riverstream. But when he pulled it off, I _felt_ it. I _felt_ myself being forced back, and I- I tried to stop it but I'd just get pulled back. And when I got pulled back, it was like I could feel everything that had ever happened. I felt the Slipstream explode, I felt mysef moving through time, getting ripped apart, _dying,_ and then coming back and doing it all over again. They told me I was gone for less than a month but, when you move through time, _really_ move through time, then it doesn't matter. It was three years for me. Three. Years. I can't do that again. Nothing is worth that pain."

Angela just looked at her in stunned silence, trying to process the rather personal information that had been given to her. Tracer had always been the moral center of Overwatch, a shining example of the reason they were fighting, fighting alongside them. She kept the team up, was the life of the party, was on T.V. interviews, took extra assignments. The only times Angela ever saw her was when they were working on her health in relation to the accelerator, and once when she had requested a sleep aid, which she hadn't cleared. Never had it occured to her, even for a moment, that the young cadet's mental health was anything less than superb. Which either meant that Lena was an excellent liar or Doctor Angela Ziegler hadn't paid enough attention to notice. And one of those two were invalid because she was taught to never, _never,_ blame the paitent for thier mental health.

"But she stayed, " the pilot's voice dragged her vack to reality, "even when I told her I was leaving all she did was say 'I'll wait' like it was nothing.

"Lena... I am so sorry. For everything." _For not seeing the signs,_ she thought _, for seeing you as a name, a brand, for letting them work you double, for letting everyone make you carry the load, for not even realizing that there was a Lena behind the Tracer. For everything we made you do, I am sorry._

Lena didn't respond, just nodded slightly, and a strange silence filled the room. At some point, the Accelerator started making a decidedly bad whirring sound causing Lena to break out in a sweat until Reindhart came in and set one giant hand on the young pilot's shoulder, as if he could keep her here by brute strength alone. No one moved, save for one time that Angela got up to change her friend's bandages and coincidentally notice that the whirring noise was just a fan in the Accelerator that had been freed up slightly when the harness had been grazed by a lucky shot, until they got home.

On the ride back, Angela and Reinhardt locked eyes once, and she could see the understanding in his. She had never thought that she hadn't fully understood her teammates until today. Until she learned that there are people under the soldiers, and that even heros need a shoulder to cry on.

Up ahead, they could see Gibraltar growing in the distance.

-

 **A/N:** Thank you so much for reading thisI plan for it to be a two-part story that would be loosely connected but if this was terrible and I should never write Overwatch again please tell me. Also if you have any criticisms or advice, espically about fight scenes or characterisation or anything else please review! Have a great day/night!


End file.
